Sunday, April 27, 2008

Game #2-2: Flyers Dome

Big win for the Flyers last night. So why is it so hard to identify the men responsible? One of those nights, I guess.

Dome hockey teamThey're going into the last minute with these 6 against the Montreal Canadiens (and they're attached to the ice, so they're not coming off)...Forwards

Jeff Carter– I've always been a bit indifferent to Jeff Carter when I've seen him. But I will say this, on the Flyers, he is looking like a pretty classy guy. That's saying next to nothing of course. Every half decent play from the Flyers last night was a result of something Jeff Carter did. And, fault Carey Price all you want, but if Plekanec was shooting like Carter did on his goal, we'd have won - a very good corner pick from a non-angle

R J Umberger– if I'm indifferent about Carter, I would have to take that even farther for Umberger. I won't - that's how little I care. His 2-goal performance was memorable because though he scored the game breakers, he did virtually nothing else. An indication of how badly the Flyers forwards, in particular were outplayed, is his presence in the dome despite my disdain

Mike Richards– he played quite poorly and got away with it - a perfect representative for his team. He played dirty and got away with it - again a perfect representative of his team. Maybe he's too busy thinking about his promised $80000 a game

Defencemen

KimmoTimonen- played well. He played the most of any Flyer, and actually looked good while doing it. He was not on the ice for any of the Canadiens goals, though he was on for plenty of chances. Mind you, he was on the ice for 3 Flyers goals as well. He has not had the impact Chara had in the previous series, but has been the best Flyer nonetheless

Randy Jones- in the same way Hamrlik deserves a lot of credit for playing with Brisebois, so Jones with Hatcher. Hatcher can do what he does, but then it will take him a fair amount of time to get to where he needs to be next. Randy Jones, a bit more fleet of foot has helped this pairing to be an effective one. The two of them together are the reason we're all asking what has happened to Plekanec. A +2 performance with some decent stats to go with, get him in the dome

Goaltender

Marin Biron- I was harsh to put Nittymaki in. Biron plays a solid game. While some of his spectacular saves in fact turn out to be misses or posts, he did make a couple of enormously important glove saves to stop the Canadienscomeback in its tracks (heard of the glove hand Carey? you can move it too). What e did best last night though was to make the easy saves. Every time Steve Begin, MathieuDandenault or some other non-goalscoring forward took a shot, it was a Canadiens turnover. This was thanks to solid positioning and preparedness from Biron. He has shown, it takes patience to get a goal past him - something the Canadiens do not seem to have at the moment. The first star for his team for certain